Cave of Forgotten Dreams

A hidden, restricted French cave lined with 35,000-year-old wall paintings of horses, bisons, lions, panthers, reindeer, bulls, and woolly mammoths is the ideal place for one of Werner Herzog’s patented voiceovers, and Herzog’s documentary on the wondrous Cave of Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc is a true dazzler in the dark. These are the oldest artworks in the world, made at a time when half of Western Europe was covered by an immense glacier. And yet the artists had the time and inspiration to paint images of Paleolithic Venuses and cave bears among the stalactites — all of which move the filmmaker to fits of rapture, intensified by his use of 3-D. Directed and written by Herzog, from an article by Judith Thurman.(90 min.)
ByKelly Vance